Growing side-by-side while changing lives

November 29, 2018

In a small fishing community in the southeast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the employees of Porto Sudeste are helping to build trusted relationships with the people living and working within the Bay of Sepetiba.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Mubadala is committed to motivating our portfolio businesses to have a positive impact on the environment and the communities where they operate. In a small fishing community in the southeast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the employees of Porto Sudeste are helping to build trusted relationships with the people living and working within the Bay of Sepetiba.

Planting seeds of inspiration

Through its community development programs, Porto Sudeste is working with the public schools of in the municipality of Itaguaí to help positively change values, habits and attitudes through environmental education and the planting of school vegetable gardens promoting collaboration and participation between teachers and students. It also encourages food education through the gardens, which promote good eating habits and better health as all produce grown in the school’s garden is used in school lunches.

The project focuses on two types of planting techniques - conventional and vertical depending on the available space.

Reeling in opportunities

Porto Sudeste is a private port, designed exclusively for the loading of solid bulk iron ore. The port is capable of receiving Capesize vessels and can handle up to 50 million tons of iron ore per year, which could be expanded to up to 100 million tons per year.

As part of its commitment to corporate responsibility, Porto Sudeste is supporting local fisherman by providing training workshops that offer the region the official regularization of the Navy for the professional waterway, providing greater safety during fishing or tourist activity.

Saving for a rainy day

The employees at Porto Sudeste have a saying “Coletamos uma quantidade tão significativa de água que um dia poderíamos começar um novo negócio vendendo água engarrafada”, which means we collect so much water that we could one day start a new business selling bottled water. Across the 533.405,04 m² site that the port occupies the operation collects and treats up to 90,000 liters of clean water annually for industrial reuse and authorized disposal.

In efforts to preserve the natural environment and vegetation native to the Atlantic rainforest surrounding the port, employees of Porto Sudeste in partnership with third parties, are restoring the local green belt by planting seedlings of native species. The impact is a reduction in noise emissions from the port to the neighboring communities, an improvement of the environmental aesthetic in an industrial area, and a helping hand for the local flora and fauna.

Healing with the power of horses

From 2015 – 2017, Porto Sudeste collaborated with the Municipal Environment Department of Itaguaí, to provide a location to conduct Equoterapia - a therapeutic method that uses horses to improve health and education through riding, for people of determination or with physical disabilities.

The project ran 240 sessions a month with 60 participants a week. The project was so successful that Porto Sudeste resumed the activity as part of their CSR program in 2018.